Free-for-all Dinner

Every once in a while we have what we call free-for-all dinner. This is the kids FAVORITE meal! Forget gourmet dinners or even the coveted McDonalds, free-for-all gets more cheers than any other meal.  So here's your clue to what free-for-all dinner is (if the name didn't give it away): We have it whenever I need to clean out the fridge.  

That's it, nothing fancy, everyone gets to raid the fridge and pantry and come up with whatever special meal they like.  The only rule is no candy or exclusively dessert foods (cookies, ice cream).  It could just as aptly be named "chaos in the kitchen".  What makes it to the table is a mish-mosh of leftovers and staples. Every plate looks different and pretty well represents the personality of the creator, someone could have a hay day psychoanalyzing us based on our free-for-all dinner plates.  So tonight was a free-for-all night, a night when even Cullen eats dinner, and here's what his plate looked like:

Your eyes are not deceiving you, that is chips dipped in chocolate syrup! Anyone want to analyze that? And he wasn't alone, that was found on 3 of 6 plates tonight. 

And if that's not enough, free-for-all night  got even more adventuresome tonight when one of the kids (you'll have to guess which one) declared that it was also utensil free night.  Eggs, spaghetti, whatever you want, no forks necessary.  I disappointed him sorely when I used a spoon to eat my yogurt.

If you would have to me even 5 years ago that dinner at my house would look like this I would have said you were crazy.  But that's the Lassiter adventure, pushing me joyously outside of my comfort zone, or in this case my manner zone - but just for 1 night! 

And did anyone notice that Cullen is eating dinner in his fleece pj's?  No comment. 

Missing Gram

It has been 2 years since our adventure to Europe and my last blog post, but as we started our summer adventures this year I thought that perhaps it was time to start blogging again.  We surely don't need to travel over seas to have fun and lot of stories.  In fact it was the many one-liners from this past weekend's trip (only 3 hours from home) that made me want to start writing them down.  So as I logged on to start blogging again I realized that I never posted this last post from the end of our European adventure, perhaps because it was too raw at the time.  Now two years have passed and I still miss Gram like crazy and she still comes up in conversation regularly.  So before I go on to this summer's adventures, here is a flashback to the week Gram passed, still sad to be missing her but a celebration of her memory...


So much has happened in the few weeks since our European Adventure... 1 broken collar bone, 2 kids started first grade, 3 kids attended peace camp, 4 of us went to the beach, 5 days in Texas for Justin, 6 football practices so far, 7 pumpkins and gourds harvested from Ethan's garden, and so much more.

Sadly one of the things that happened was the passing of Gram, the same Gram that encouraged me to start writing this blog (see my first post ever).

As we were cleaning out her apartment dad came across a folder full of all the blog posts I had written before she got sick, she had printed out every single one.  When I talked to her the week we got back from Europe it was like she had been there with us as we reminisced about so many of the fun moments we had while we were there.  We were even blessed to get to skype together 3 times while we were in France, how cool is that!

Gram was 94 when she peacefully left us to be with our Heavenly Father, she was a woman of great faith.  She gave wonderful advice and told it like it was.  I learned so much from her about parenting and loving, I hope that I can touch half as many lives in my lifetime as she did in hers. Gram could talk to anyone forever and whoever she was talking to knew that she was genuinely interested in what they were saying, it was a gift that I so admired and benefited from. And no one else could talk someone into doing exactly what she wanted without ever getting angry or making them angry, not the way Gram could -- when I had to "pull a Gram" with the phone company last week I was grateful for her example, friendly but forceful.  Gram also taught me things like "it doesn't matter how well you play, it's how you look from the road" and "if you don't know the answer make it up, just be sure you sell it well".  Don't worry, I may use that last tip on my kids but never my students :)  Most of all Gram taught me so much about loving people and loving God.  I miss Gram, so many people miss Gram, her life was a gift to this world.